Welcome to the Academy!
Every time I see a grumpy post on the internet about how the Oscars don't matter or the Oscars are irrelevant or passe or [insert gripe here] my face contorts into a 'oh, that's cute' type of look, the one you might give the very naive if possibly well meaning transfer in your high school comedy.
I love her, she's like a Martian.
The Oscars have always mattered. The very fact that people can't stop bitching about them, for 80 some years now, suggests that they still very much do and always will. The Oscars have been synonymous with movie greatness for so many generations that whether or not any greatness is actually happening in their selections is the point of discussion. It's also why one wishes the governing body of AMPAS wouldn't act like such nervous jittery freshmen themselves, forever worrying about what they're wearing ('does this rule-change make me look fat?') and if they're listening to the right music ('no, yeah, i totally love that ____. Didn't you see my expanded BP playlist?!'') .
The Oscars are the cool table that everyone wants to sit at and 276 new kids (after the jump) have been invited to do just that.